Bob Schieffer - This Just In: What I Couldnt Tell You on TV

Table of Contents

Compelling... will put you at front and center of a working life that has run the gamut from JFKs assassination in 1963 to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York... The authors laid-back, no-nonsense style as a CBS correspondentand eventually as an anchormantranslates well to the written page, in this account of a life dedicated to finding out the truth. The book is an easy readyou could be sitting on a front porch listening to the author recount the events.

Schieffer balances serious subjects in the book with ample doses of humor... [This] book not only brims with historical insights, it is honest, direct, and self-critical... Grade: A.

The book conveys, in Schieffers folksy manner, a life of right-place-right-time serendipity crossed with a passion for reporting, an unswerving work ethic, and a Texans way with a tale.

Vietnam, the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Civil Rights struggle, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Ford pardon, the Reagan years, the first war with Iraq, Clinton, the 2000 election, the terrorist attacksSchieffer has solid, sometimes humorous, firsthand stories about them all, many of them told here for the first time.

Schieffer spins the kind of engaging yarn that is normally to be found only in beer joints and hotel cocktail lounges when reporters congregate at the end of a long day. A delightful (and frequently enlightening) romp through the last forty years.

Ted Koppel

A highly engaging read. Hes seen it all and has much wisdom about journalism and governance to impart... Schieffer has a sharp eye for intriguing details and an instinct for maintaining the proper focus on his subjects rather than on himself. When he does get personal, he admirably questions his occasional missteps in balancing family and career... succeeds not only as a primer on broadcast journalism but also as an informal history of America over the past forty years.

Absorbing.

Engaging.

A pull-no-punches book, but gracefully written, sparkling with good humor and full of new insights into Washington and the history of our times.

Dan Rather

Candid... hours of compelling reading... well worth the price and the time it takes to read it.

One of the most important keys to understanding anything important in Washington is to learn what Bob Schieffer knows about it and thinks about it. This Just In tells it all, with grace and insight.

Benjamin C. Bradlee

Engaging, charming, filled with brio, wisdom, and an abiding sense of humor, This Just In shows us not only how Bob Schieffer became such a superb journalist. It also illuminates what a delightful man he is. Michael Beschloss

Everything a memoir should becandid, funny, and loaded with great stories about famous people, from Lee Harvey Oswalds mother to George W. Bushand the old pro, Bob Schieffer, himself.

David S. Broder
The Washington Post

On paper, Schieffer comes across pretty much the way he does on televisionas a straight-talking, common-sensical, and good-natured fellow.

A work of understatement and self-deprecating humor, honesty, and humility.

Bob Schieffer has always been able to dig up more of what really goes on in Washington than the rest of us, and we were hoping he wouldnt write a book like this to prove it. Schieffer wins again!

Sam Donaldson

This insightful, instructive, and entertaining book on Washington, national politics, and journalism is the work of one of the best reporters of our time. His keen eye and Texas sense of humor are a pitch-perfect combination to take us through some of the larger and small events of the last quarter-century.

Tom Brokaw

What comes through is that Schieffer was always an honest news craftsmandependable, real, and believable on camera... not a bad way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

Bob Schieffer is smart, witty, and insightfuland so is This Just In!

Tim Russert

What a terrific book. Made me smile more than a platter of Tex-Mex enchiladas!

Dan Jenkins

Some years back, Dan Rather was off in some godforsaken corner of the world and I was in New York anchoring a special report, when a young desk assistant named Jill Rosenbaum approached the anchor desk during a break and handed me a piece of copy.

In my best TV voice, I said, Ah... this just in?

No, she said in all seriousness, this was just sitting there on the desk. I didnt think you saw it.

Thats sort of how it was with this book. Most of these stories had just been sitting there, waiting until I had a place to put them down on paper. Over the years, Ive told some of them on Don Imuss radio show. Imus has been on my case for years to publish a collection of the commentaries that I do each Sunday on Face the Nation, and when I resisted one day, he said, Well, you should talk to Esther about it, Esther being Esther Newberg, the literary agent (super-agent, Ive come to understand) who represents Imus. Nothing stops Imus when he gets on a project, and when I called Esther later that morning, she said, Oh, hes already called. The problem is, journalism collections dont sell very well. Why dont you just do a book? So I did. I wrote the first four chapters, sent them off to Esther, and she sent them to several publishing houses, including Penguin Putnam, where Neil Nyren saw the makings of a book and has proven to be a wonderful editor. So first thanks go to Imus, Esther and Neil. Without them, this book wouldnt have happened and these stories would still be sitting there. (Note to Imus: Were working on that collection of commentaries.)

Nor would this book have been possible without the cooperation of the eighty-five people who allowed me to interview them on the record. Nearly all of them are quoted by name. Others, such as Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bushs national security advisor, and historian Michael Beschloss, gave me valuable context and background and guided me to others who had the answers I was seeking. Only on several occasions was I forced to resort to anonymous sources, and in those cases, the information they gave me usually amounted to no more than minor detail. What I set out to do when I began this book in January 2001 was to write about my experiences in covering some of the big stories of the past forty years, but as I jogged my own memory, I began to wonder how the people involved in many of those events felt about them with the passing of time. So I decided to call as many as I could find. Over the next eighteen months, I talked to two former presidents, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. During the Middle East crisis in the spring of 2002, the current president, George W. Bush, found time to talk to me about his feelings on 9-11. I had hoped to interview former president Bill Clinton as well, but his office informed me that his publisher has forbidden him to give book interviews until his own book is published. Former Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and James A. Baker, III, were especially generous with their time, as were former Defense Secretaries Melvin R. Laird and James Schlesinger. I spent a delightful afternoon with Eugene McCarthy, now eighty-six, talking about campaigns past and present, and had two long interviews with George McGovern. Many of those in Lyndon Johnsons inner circle, especially George Christian and Joseph Califano, spoke candidly to me about Johnsons decision not to seek reelection in 1968, and his later regret about withdrawing from the race. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, former Senator Bob Dole and Senator Tom Daschle gave me new insight into the Washington of more recent years. Dr. Frank Stanton, who along with William S. Paley shaped CBS into the Tiffany network, spoke candidly about those days, as did Arthur Taylor, the man Paley chose to replace Stanton. During a long telephone conversation, former CBS owner Lawrence Tisch gave me new insight into his side of the turbulent period when control of CBS shifted from Paley to Tisch and eventually to Westinghouse and later Viacom. To each of them, my thanks for helping me to have a better understanding of what I had remembered and, in some instances, for reminding me of things I had forgotten.